Slow Photos (First Gallery now online)

Discussion 5 posts |  Only members can post. Join?

About Slow Photos (First Gallery now online)

This group is a bit of an experiment.

By 'Slow Photos', I don't mean long exposures. Nor do I mean photographs which took a long time to see the light of day (I've just finished printing some negatives I took in 2004, so I know what I'm talking about here).

No; the idea of this group is to bring together photographs that best express the philosophy of the growing 'Slow' movement; a worldwide movement to step back from the insane pace of modern life, and bring back the idea of giving things the time they need. Rather than cramming every moment full of superficial activity, the adherents of the Slow movement seek to do a few things well, and take the time to appreciate and savour them fully.

This all started with the Italian Slow Food movement, and has been growing ever since.

So what would a Slow photo be? Well, part of the idea of this group is to find out, but I would imagine that such a photograph would be a quiet, contemplative sort of image, probably in a 'straight' style; one that perhaps took some time to appreciate initially, but repayed that time with interest.

Photographers whose work has influenced me, and who I might describe as 'Slow', would include Edward Weston, Raymond Moore and Sam Abell. It took me a little while to appreciate all of these photographers' work, but now I come back to it again and again, and it never grows boring.

To start the ball rolling, I'm going to post one or two of my own photographs which make some attempt to embody the ideas I'm talking about. Over the next few months, I intend to invite other photographers into the group, where I feel their work fits in.

Submissions are welcome, and will be considered carefully and (you guessed it) slowly. This could take quite a while, and if you get impatient, maybe this whole 'Slow' thing isn't your cup of tea.

Discussion threads are also welcome. In the spirit of the Slow movement, these should be polite, friendly and thoughtful. Brevity is not necessarily a virtue here!

I'd like to keep the group rules to a minimum. And here they are:
Try to submit quiet, contemplative images which will hold the viewer's interest for a long time.
Image borders, unless very discrete, are probably best avoided.
Watermarks, copyright notices and other similar disfigurements of the image area are absolutely banned.
Needless to say, offensive comments and spam will be removed and possibly reported. So watch it.